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Zalaria
Zalaria was a Shok'Thola, one of the supreme leaders of the Altarin'Dakor. An Elerian, she was born on the planet Merinama sometime around 29,000 BBY. She was one of the original Followers of Ashla who broke away after receiving a connection to the Entity. Later, she and her brother Nimrod eradicated every living being on their home planet and became two of the most feared of the Warlords. They led the Altarin'Dakor to conquer the new galaxy to which they had fled. Sometime between 4,000 and 500 BBY, she captured the Kajeat Traveler known as Icis Novitaar, broke him and made him her slave for over 300 years. Eventually claiming to come to her senses, she turned away from the violent and ruthless methods of the Warlords and joined Xar Kerensky in the New Imperium, actually fighting against the Altarin'Dakor. The two later married and she gave birth to their son. History Zalaria and Nimrod were born into the royal family on Merinama. However, while they were still children, their parents were assassinated in a coup that wiped out the whole royal family. A nurse saved the siblings, but they ultimately ended up on the streets, alone. Zalaria took care of her brother, then known as Nimlin, struggling to earn enough money for their survival. Eventually Nimlin grew into a thief and local hero, as they manifested incredible powers in the Force. When Nimlin and Zalaria's powers awakened, the Followers of Ashla found them and brought them off-world for training. Over the years, the two of them grew to become powerful and respected members of Jedi society and eventually became legendary heroes. Zalaria was known as a great mediator, while Nimrod was adept at exposing plots, catching criminals, and outwitting potential insurrections. Kigiras was a warmaster and instructor at the war academies, while Jarthanis was a philosopher and teacher who was known for his staunch conservatism. These Force-users lived long, full lives and became old members of galactic society during the Golden Age. However, one day in 28,520 BBY, Sado came to some of them with an astonishing discovery - he had become seemingly young again, appearing as though he were in his mid-twenties. Furthermore, his power in the Force had increased a hundredfold. He revealed to them his secret: during his experiments into extra-dimensional planes, he had tapped into a new source of power. Most of the Shok'Thola were advanced in age by that point and would have loved to have youth once more. Some desired more strength in the Force to accomplish greater things. Others wanted the chance to live forever. Few Warlords joined because of greed or lust for power. In the end, many flocked to Sado's cause, linking through him to the Entity and attaining power and life beyond their wildest dreams. Sado, however, did not reveal to them the true purpose of the Entity - to eventually gain entry into their universe and consume it just as it had done before. The Warlords were, unknowingly, mere pawns to be used. The Great Schism At first the Jedi were astonished by the new-found youth that the Shok'Thola had. The Warlords continued to accomplish great feats with their new power. Eventually, however, jealousy set in. The other Jedi aged while the Warlords did not. This led the Jedi to attempt to limit and control the Warlords. Those attempts were resisted. The Jedi, unable to come anywhere close to the power the Warlords had, demanded that they give up their powers. The Shok'Thola refused. Ideological differences had developed and strong arguments ensued.The Warlords began to see themselves as superior, above the Jedi, giving them the right to rule. Zalaria and Nimrod returned to their homeworld where they were welcomed as heroes and rulers. They became the monarchs, heads of the planetary government, their political opponents long since passed away. For many years they ruled, and the people followed loyally. Eventually, however, the people tired of them. They realized that rulers who never left office or died would never change. Support for them waned; revolutions began, but Zalaria and Nimrod were too obsessed with their power, too changed by their contact with the Entity. All resistance was stamped out ruthlessly and brutally, but it only created more. Ultimately Zalaria and Nimrod became absolute monarchs, in a reign of terror. The other Warlords had continued their squabbles with the other Followers of Ashla. Eventually the tensions rose to the breaking point.The Followers demanded the Warlords leave. With sheer numbers on their side they forced them into exile, though nearly half their number left with the Warlords. Zalaria and Nimrod were betrayed by their own people and decided to follow the others into exile. During that time Zalaria took on of her most loyal proteges to Sado and sponsored him to become a Shok'Thola. He took the name Kronos. As they fled, Sado found a young Follower named Elan Mossin, a recent addition to the Ashla Temple. Mossin had been hailed as possibly the most latently powerful Force-user ever discovered, and his future with the Followers was bright. Leaping at this opportunity, Sado - with the Entity's prodding - chose Mossin as the new avatar - the Altima. Sado maintained a direct link with the Entity, but was freed of its insane mind control. Suddenly, the Warlords had a new leader. While in exile, the Warlords amassed a military force, perfected their offensive capabilities, and Sado engineered a host of amalgam races to fight for them, such as the Crinn, the Mortigena, the Zelduk, and the Charon. His finest creation, the queen mother of the Crinn, he sponsored to become a Shok'Thola. She bacome Raftina. The Great War Now calling themselves the Altarin'Dakor, or servants of power (of Altima, whose name means power), the Warlords invaded the galaxy and attempted to take over. The Great War erupted in 28,499 BBY and lasted for over 2,000 years. During the war Zalaria and Nimrod retake their homeworld, much to the horror of their people. They decide to punish the people for their rebellion and long hatred of their family, and exterminate every living person on their homeworld of Merinama.This made them infamous even among the other Warlords. As the centuries passed, the war swung back and forth, with each side gaining the upper hand. For many years the Altarin'Dakor held Coruscant and most of the Core Worlds. Then the battle swung in the favor of the combined galactic alliance. In the end, the sheer determination of the alliance members for freedom drove the Altarin'Dakor out. The tide turned, and even Warlords began to fall as the invaders were driven further and further towards the Rim. Akargan, a prominent Altarin'Dakor Jedicon warrior, was raised to become Shok'Thola during this time. Finally, in sheer desperation the Altarin'Dakor expend almost all their resources to construct a Galactic Gate that transports them to another, unknown galaxy. Any of their forces that did not flee with them were completely wiped out. In their new galaxy, the Warlords carved out a brand-new new empire, though the process took millennia. Until the AD galaxy was subjugated they fought countless wars, both with indigenous species and with each other. Other Warlords such as Mordachus and Calvernic were raised during this time. Eventually, each Warlord held his or her own empire, some spanning billions of systems. As the years passed, civil wars raged as some Shok'Thola tried to consolidate power and rise to prominence. They developed a society where they were revered and worshiped as gods, and never revealed themselves to the common people or military forces. Instead, they had regents and emperors who reported to them, and grand admirals who ran their fleets, all with unswerving loyalty to their immortal Shok'Thola. The Altarin'Dakor Galaxy Eventually, boredom set in, and eventually rose to become the Warlords' biggest enemy. With the passing of eons, everything began to seem like a repetition of the something that had already happened before. They found themselves with an abundance of one, single element: time. They studied every art and science, mastered the Force and every other known activity. This brought unexpected new abilities. Mastering biology granted them powers to alter their own physiology in ways they'd never known possible. Study of physics and other subjects allowed them to warp space and time, and discover new feats. However, even this knowledge could not sustain them forever. They began to become more and more eccentric, taking on strange hobbies and characteristics to keep from going insane over the millennia. They sparked wars with each other simply to pass the time, and engaged in every type of sensual pleasure and hedonistic activity. Nevertheless, some succumbed to madness. Some were rumored to be absorbed into the Entity itself, while some simply vanished and were never heard from again. Others developed obsessions. For Akargan it was personal combat and physiology. For Strife it was art and personal beauty. For Sado it was the collection of eclectic and obscure knowledge, artifacts, and sciences. For Kronos it was the accumulation of prestige, resources, pleasure, and his own vanity. For Nimrod it was technology and mental prowess, while for Zalaria and Asellus it often was simply violence, and hedonism. For Velius, contrary to the levelheaded man he'd once been, it was the complete obsession with pleasure of any type, something that possibly drove him the most insane of them all. During this process Zalaria became one of the most feared and ruthless of the Warlords. She and Asellus became lovers, and regularly engaged in bloodletting orgies involving the slaughter of countless innocents simply for the thrill of killing. Meanwhile, Nimrod established his empire slowly using his unmatched military genius. His obsession with technology grew, and as thousands of years passed he began to not simply seek victory, but to win using the least possible resources, taking fewest losses, or handicapping himself purposely in some other way. Sometime during this point, Zalaria discovered Icis Novitaar, who had been exiled into the Altarin'Dakor galaxy. Capturing him, she tortured him and made him reveal information about the Travelers, then made him into her personal slave for over three hundred years, until he eventually escaped. The infighting amongst the Warlords continued, and occasionally one Shok'Thola would kill another, each trying to achieve dominance. Altima promised them that one day he would choose a First Among Equals, the one who would Spearhead the Return. Civil war ensued. Some Warlords who were sufficiently beaten down and therefore seen as powerless suffered the ultimate fate by being consumed by the Entity. That fact created an incentive for the other Warlords to stay on top and in power. Though by this point they longed for death to stop the endless agony of immortality, they did not want to be consumed by the Entity. Altima would not release them from their agreement. The price had to be paid. At some point during their bloodletting sprees, Zalaria came to her senses and for the first time in milennia questioned the morality of what she was doing. She broke all ties with Asellus, earning the other woman's spite and a feud that would last for millennia. At this point, like the others, she longed for death, but knew that as it could not come, she had to find an new purpose for her life. She began to change, mellowing and becoming more lenient. She decided to try and shut down the entire operation of the Return, a goal that would, perhaps, stave off the boredom. However, she knew she needed to move slowly, and her plan takes centuries to develop (this is just after Icis has escaped from her imprisonment, unfortunately for him she hadn't realized this at the time) Zalaria ceased to become a prominent member of the Shok'Thola and finally the siblings' positions reversed. Nimrod was now the dominant one, and he began to assert his dominance over her, protecting her from the others while also gaining power over her governance and forces. They were still at that point in their relationship when Xar interfered and Zalaria decided to join the NI and fight from the other side. The Return The Altarin'Dakor offensive began in Epsilon Sector, launched from the Altarin'Dakor stronghold in the Mizar System by the Warlord Kronos. Kronos attempted to neutralize the New Imperium by cowing them with overwhelming force; he demonstrated their superiority by taking the Satyr System in a lightning-fast strike, then when the NI refused to budge, he had Diktat Ryskar D'larit assassinated and attacked Varnus in a blitzkrieg assault, even capturing Jedi Grand Master Xar Kerensky in the process. Back at Mizar, with Xar Kerensky as captive, Kronos devoted himself to turning the Jedi Master to his cause, believing this would be the key to winning the New Imperium without a fight. In addition, he began operations to try and free the Zelduk from their long imprisonment deep within the planet Darklon, where they had been left over from the Great War for future assault in the Return. Unfortunately for Kronos, his attempts to subvert Xar Kerensky failed. Finally in anger he killed the Jedi Master, though he was revived by Zalaria, who had been a guest onboard Kronos' space station assigned by the other Shok'Thola to observe and record his actions as Spearhead. Unhappy with Kronos' handling of the Return and sensing her chance to strike, Zalaria empowered Kerensky and sent him against Kronos just as the Warlord was using most of his powers to unseal the Zelduk from the planet below. Zalaria was also intrigued by Kerensky in a way she couldn't quite understand. Nevertheless Kerensky attacked Kronos in his command center, killed General Akira, and with the help of other NI Jedi finally killed the Warlord. On the way out they destroyed the entire space station, which caused a chain reaction that destroyed the entire planet of Darklon. Switching Sides Later, Xar Kerensky traveled to find Zalaria, and convinced her to join him and the New Imperium and flee from Nimrod's stronghold. Zalaria helped the New Imperium from that point onward, and with Xar's help was able to thwart an assassination attempt by Velius on their lives. They also faced off against Strife in a search for a powerful Force artifact known as the Collector. Afterwards, she and Xar were married and she became pregnant shortly thereafter. After Kronos' death, Nimrod declared himself the Spearhead of the Return, and led an assault into NI space. He nearly conquered the entire New Imperium, taking them down to their last few worlds, and attacked their capital worlds of Tralaria and Varnus simultaneously. However, when he descended, a young man appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and with incredible Force strength, easily killed the Warlord. He then healed Xar and told him that he was his and Zalaria's son, come back from the future, not only to save him but to enlist his help in stopping the Ones from destroying everything in the future. After the battle, Zalaria lay claim to all of Nimrod's forces and territory, claiming that she was now the dominant Shok'Thola. As the tide turned, the New Imperium began to counterattack, and Zalaria took command of most of the New Imperium's forces as Xar left in seach of answers about his own troubled past. By this time Zalaria was clearly pregnant; she later gave birth to a son, whom they named Derek in honor of the young boy killed at the Battle of Varnus. Personality and Traits A member of the Elerian royal family, Zalaria was an incredibly beautiful woman with olive skin and long, dark hair that she often wore in dreadlocks. During the Golden Age she was devoted to noble causes and helping the needy, most likely a result of her own fall to and subsequent rise from poverty. Later, after being seduced by the lure of youth and power from the Entity, she became as hedonistic and evil as any Shok'Thola, devoted to violence and domination. She carved out an empire based on fear and cruelty, a complete contrast to what she had been before. However, once she came to her senses, she attempted to make herself as inconspicuous as possible while secretly planning a way to overthrow the system of Warlords. Zalaria appeared to have genuinely fallen in love with Xar Kerensky, although she admitted that her reasons and feelings were more complicated than that. After joining the New Imperium she kept a mysterious persona, keeping her motives to herself, though she took a strong militaristic command and view of the New Imperium Navy and still held quite a temper, which held most unfortunate results for the recipients on the other end. She was the strongest of the female Shok'Thola, with a power level rumored to be in the high 400,000s, though she was afraid to battle Strife, was seriously outmatched fighting Velius, and was somewhat weaker than Kronos. Category:New pages Category:Characters